EYE 2017.Bela Tarr Exhibition Brochure
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Exhibition and flm programme 21 Jan – 7 May 2017 Béla Tarr Till the End of the World EYE Filmmuseum Amsterdam eyeflm.nl /tarr Filmography of Almanac of Fall Hungary/Italy/France/Germany Béla Tarr that these events provoked him into (O˝ szi almanach), 1984, Scenario: László Krasznahorkai making a statement in this exhibition at Béla Tarr colour, 119’ (based on his 1989 novel Till the End of EYE. Not so much a political statement, Hungary Az ellenállás melankóliája (1955) Scenario: Béla Tarr (The Melancholy of the World but more an appeal to humanity, to the Cinematography: Buda Gulyás, Resistance)), Béla Tarr people and politicians of Europe, to Sándor Kardos, Ferenc Pap Cinematography: Gábor respect universal human values. Montage & assistant director: Medvigy and Jörg Widmer, Rob Ágnes Hranitzky Tregenza, Patrick de Ranter, The work of Tarr reveals a sombre Music: Mihály Víg Emil Novák, Miklós Gurbán, Erwin Lanzensberger Jaap Guldemond view of the world, in which people have Damnation (Kárhozat), Co-director & montage: little control of their own existence. The 1988, black and white, 120’ Ágnes Hranitzky characters in his flms feel abandoned Hungary Music: Mihály Víg by life. The flms are chiefy set in dreary Scenario: László Hotel Magnezit, 1978, Krasznahorkai, Béla Tarr Visions of Europe, segment surroundings dominated by decay, black and white, 10’ Cinematography: Gábor entitled Prologue (Prológus), EYE is proud to present the frst disintegration and disinterest. An out- Hungary Medvigy 2004, black and white, 5’ ever exhibition by the Hungarian flm sider sometimes appears, upsetting the Montage & assistant director: Hungary maker Béla Tarr (Pécs, Hungary, 1955). established patterns within a small Family Nest Cinematography: Robby Müller Ágnes Hranitzky Béla Tarr is widely regarded as one of community. But Tarr also makes it clear (Családi tu˝zfészek), 1979, Music: Mihály Víg Music: Mihály Víg black and white, 108’ the most important and infuential flm that there can be no escape. Life Hungary City Life, episode entitled The Man from London authors of the past three decades. remains as it is. Scenario: Béla Tarr The Last Boat (Az utolsó (A londoni férf), 2007, black He is the master of the long take, the Cinematography: Ferenc Pap hajó), 1990, Béla Tarr, black and white, 139’ master of wonderfully shot, languid, As one of the great masters of Montage: Anna Kornis and white, 30’ Hungary/Germany/France Music: János Bródy, Mihály Argentina / Netherlands Scenario: László melancholic flms about the human contemporary cinema, Tarr has carved Móricz, Szabolcs Szörényi, Scenario: Béla Tarr, László Krasznahorkai, Béla Tarr, condition. After making his international out this bleak view of the world a body Béla Tolcsvay, László Tolcsvay Krasznahorkai adaptation of Georges breakthrough with Damnation (1988), of work that is hypnotic in its sheer Cinematography: Gábor Simenon’s novel L’homme he enhanced his reputation and standing visual force. More than anyone else, he The Outsider de Londres, 1934 2 1 Medvigy with the more than seven-hour Satan- has the courage to trust the image. After (Szabadgyalog), 1982, colour, Montage: Ágnes Hranitzky Cinematography: Fred 122’ Music: Mihály Víg, Zbigniew Kelemen tango (1994), Werckmeister Harmonies Damnation (1988) he flmed in black Hungary Preisner Co-director & montage: (2000) and The Turin Horse (2011). and white only, or rather in shades of Scenario: Béla Tarr Ágnes Hranitzky grey, using extreme long shots in which Cinematography: Barna Mihók, Satantango (Sátántangó), Music: Mihály Víg Tarr considers The Turin Horse to he lets the camera ‘explore’ spaces or Ferenc Pap 1994, black and white, 450’ Montage & assistant director: Hungary/Germany/Switzerland The Turin Horse be his very last flm, the one in which he landscapes very slowly. In combination Ágnes Hranitzky Scenario: László Krasznahorkai (A torinói ló), 2011, black and has said all he wanted to say as a with the almost total lack of a traditional Music: András Szabó (based on his novel Sátán tangó, white, 146’ flmmaker. For Tarr views flmmaking, story line, his style of flming reinforces 1985), Béla Tarr Hungary/France/Germany/ not as a profession, but as an urgency. the state of mind of his characters and The Prefab People Cinematography: Gábor Switzerland/United States If there is no need to say something, (Panelkapcsolat), 1982, black Medvigy Scenario: László the futility of existence. Even though and white, 102’ Montage & co-author: Krasznahorkai, Béla Tarr better to remain silent. In recent years, Tarr has an unmistakeably sombre view Hungary Ágnes Hranitzky Cinematography: Fred however, Europe has been confronted of society, he shows great compassion Scenario: Béla Tarr Music: Mihály Víg Kelemen by huge infuxes of refugees from Syria, for his characters by infusing the rain, Cinematography: Barna Mihók, Co-director & montage: Afghanistan, Iraq, Eritrea, Somalia and the mud, the wind, the disintegration and Ferenc Pap Journey on the Plain Ágnes Hranitzky Montage & assistant director: (Utazás az Alföldön), 1995, Music: Mihály Víg other countries in Africa. Tarr was the despair with a poetry that testi fes to Ágnes Hranitzky television flm, colour, 35’ moved by the way Europe – after an his empathy. Music: Mihály Víg Hungary initially positive response – reacted by Scenario: based on the closing its borders. Europe simply For EYE, Tarr has made a flmic Macbeth, 1982, 72’, poems of Sándor Peto˝f television flm, colour Cinematography: Fred stood by and watched as a humanitarian installation that is a cross between a Hungary Kelemen tragedy unfolded before its eyes. One flm, a theatre decor and an installation. Scenario: Béla Tarr, Montage: Ágnes Hranitzky of the frst countries to close its borders Tarr shares with us his anger with the Ágnes Hranitzky, based on Music: Mihály Víg was Béla Tarr’s native Hungary. help of ‘found footage’, images of war, William Shakespeare fragments from his own flms and props. Cinematography: Buda Gulyás, Werckmeister Harmonies Ferenc Pap (Werckmeister harmóniák), Anybody who is at all familiar with the The exhibition starts with a space that Music: András Szabó 2000, black and white, 145’ work of Béla Tarr will not be surprised confronts visitors with the inhuman I conditions from which migrants try to escape, and in which they fnd them selves after a long journey. War, Border. We enter the exhibition by passing bombings, poverty, hunger, oppression, through a border checkpoint. A no-man’s-land fear and fnally closed borders and local henchmen who strike fear into the surrounded by fences. Like those being built migrants, rob them, and try to force again today all over Europe, like those that them back. Visitors then enter the world of Tarr, populated by similar characters Béla Tarr increasingly encounters in his native on the margins of society. Hungary. Behind the fences we see refugees, Tarr picked up his camera one immigrants, transients, illegal residents. Despair more time specially for this exhibition has wiped the last gleam of hope from their and flmed an 11minute shot as the ultimate epilogue to his work in flm. In faces. This is the reality of an open Europe. it, a small boy plays the accordion in an Tarr collected photos and news images for this anonymous shopping centre. A look of installation. dismay falls across the face of the boy, unsure as he is whether he can trust the world before him — a world that we viewers cannot see. With this, Tarr asks us: can we create a world we can believe in? 2 Béla Tarr: 3 ‘I still consider flm not as show business, but as the seventh art.’ Werckmeister Harmonies, 2000 II Béla Tarr 6. This story begins in the dark. You This is no oeuvre; could say that all flm fables begin in Exterior. The cinema of Béla Tarr reduced to its this is a universe the dark. But this one begins in the dark purest essence, to a single image. The tree that because it ends in the dark. This story begins with the end. Few artists valiantly stands frm in the lashing wind in his announce at the height of their artistic fnal flm The Turin Horse (2011). This is a space powers that they’re quitting because Dana Linssen they ‘have said all they had to say’. And in which to feel and hear the wind. To experience then make a fnal flm about the last six the solitude and desolation of emptiness. days before the light dies. As though the end of humanity and the end of cinema Being-intime is an important aspect of the flms coincide. Yet that is precisely what of Béla Tarr. The time that passes in his famous Hungarian flmmaker Béla Tarr did when his flm The Turin Horse premiered long shots. Moving through the space, visitors at the 2011 Berlin Film Festival, and the create their own long take, their own tracking jury promptly awarded him a Golden shot. Our eyes become the eyes of the camera. Bear. The Turin Horse opens with a dry voice-over that tells how the philos opher Friedrich Nietzsche, on 3 January 1889, witnessed a coachman mal treating his horse in Turin. The story goes that Nietzsche threw his arms around the horse’s neck and then went mad. 4 5 ‘About the horse,’ the narrator con- tinues, ‘we know nothing.’ You could ‘This is a true story. say that the flm follows that horse, all the way to the Hungarian puszta, where It didn’t happen to an apocalyptic wind lashes the land. the people in the flm, There we encounter the half-paralysed driver and his adult daughter who but it could have.’ watch with resig nation as the world (Family Nest, 1977) ends, flling their days with the only chores that people can still carry out: fetching water, washing clothes, cooking potatoes, sleeping.